Here Are Some Of The Best Back To School Laptop Deals For College Students
In the old days, going back to school meant stocking up on reams of paper, lead pencils, binders, and if you were really fancy, a TI-82 graphing calculator (high tech!). Some of those might still be on the list of supplies, but these days it's essential to have a capable laptop. Don't sweat it if you're in need of an upgrade, though, we've gathered up a bunch of laptop deals to ensure you're ready for the school year.
One of the better laptop deals available right now is Apple's MacBook Air (2020) with an M1 processor inside. It's discounted to a very reasonable $749.99 at Amazon (save $249.01). Don't be put off by the model year—even though it's a few years old at this point, Apple's M1 silicon is a capable chip and it comes wrapped in a sleek, thin, and light form factor.
Other specs include a 13.3-inch Retina display, 8GB of RAM, 256GB of solid state storage, a backlit keyboard, Touch ID, and up to 18 hours of battery life (courtesy of the power efficiency M1 chip).
If it''s a Windows laptop you prefer but you still want to hit the same general price point, then check out the Acer Swift Go 14 for $689.99 (save $160). Simply put, this is a great Intel Evo machine at a really nice price, with current-generation hardware and premium-level features.
One of those is the 14-inch display, which is an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel with a 1920x1200 resolution. It's powered by an Intel 13th Gen Core i7-1355U processor (10C/12T, up to 5GHz, 12MB L3 cache) based on Raptor Lake with Iris Xe graphics, and 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM.
It's also rocking a 512GB PCIe 4.0 solid state drive so that storage won't be a bottleneck. And for wireless connectivity, it features a dual-stream Killer Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax) adapter and Bluetooth 5.1. All of this comes package in a lightweight chassis that measures just 0.59 inches thin and weighs 2.76 pounds. The bang-for-buck is pretty high on this one.
As important as it is to stay focused on your schoolwork, sometimes you just need to blow off a little steam. If you have a bigger budget to work with, you can do that with the Alienware m15 R7, a fast gaming laptop that's deeply discounted to $1,389.99 (save $780). This is the cheapest we have ever seen this model/configuration.
This one is a little bigger than the previous two laptops, as it sports a 15.6-inch display with a 2540x1440 resolution and 240Hz refresh rate. It takes some meaty hardware to really push a 240Hz panel, and to help do that on this laptop, Alienware configured this setup with a Core i7-12700H processor (14C/20T, up to 4.7GHz, 24MB L3 cache) based on Alder Lake and a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (8GB GDDR6) GPU.
It also wields 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, and that distinct styling that makes Alienware laptops stand out from the crowd.
Another higher end option that's worth looking into is the ASUS VivoBook Pro 16X for $1,899.99 at Amazon (save $100). It's obviously a little pricey compared to the others featured here, but this is a seriously capable laptop that's even more powerful than one we just reviewed.
One of the highlights is the 16-inch OLED display with a 3200x200 resolution (16:10 aspect ratio) and NanoEdge bezels. That's an upgrade over the IPS screen that was on the model we reviewed, both in terms of image quality and resolution. It has a 120Hz refresh rate, offers 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, and is Pantone validated.
Other premium amenities on tap include a beastly Core i9-13980HX processor (24C/32T, up to 5.6GHz, 36MB L3 cache), GeForce RTX 4070 graphics, 16GB of DDR5 RAM, a spacious 1TB SSD, Harmon Kardon tuned speakers, a MUX switch, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5 connectivity, and Windows 11 Home.
Here are several more laptops that get you ready for school year...
- Acer Aspire 3 (14", Ryzen 5 7520U, 8GB/512GB): $384.99 (save $65)
- HP Laptop (15.6", i5-1135G7, 8GB/256GB): $459 (save $200)
- Microsoft Surface Laptop Go (12.4", i5-1035G1, 8GB/128GB): $518.88 (save $181.11)
- Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i (13.3", i3-1115G4, 8GB/128GB): $399 (save $30.99)
- Dell Inspiron 15 3000 (15.6", i5-1035G1, 32GB/1TB): $572.99 (save $126.01)
- ASUS VivoBook Pro 16X OLED (16", Ryzen 9 6900H, RTX 3050 Ti): $1,349 (save $300)
- Acer Nitro 17 (17.3", Ryzen 7 7840HS, RTX 4060, 165Hz): $1,149.99 (save $250)
- Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3 (15.6", Ryzen 5 6600H, RTX 3050): $625.35 (save $274.64)
- MSI Think GF63 (15.6", i7-12650H, RTX 4050): $894.99 (save $104.01)
- Lenovo LOQ (16", i7-13620H, RTX 4050, 64GB/2TB): $1,399.99 w/ coupon (save $100)
On the Lenovo LOQ, just be sure the check the 'Apply $100 coupon' box before adding the laptop to your cart and checking out.
